


I Lost Myself

by self_indulgent_authorship



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Amnesia, Hurt/Comfort, Link (Legend of Zelda) Needs a Hug, M/M, Memory Loss, Revali (Legend of Zelda) Being an Asshole, Selectively Mute Link (Legend of Zelda), Sorry Not Sorry, as in she kinda stinks in this, but not really, uh...this is also not that nice to Zelda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:21:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25758019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/self_indulgent_authorship/pseuds/self_indulgent_authorship
Summary: With no memories, no shrines beyond the Great Plateau, and only the weapons he could scavenge along the way, somehow, Link defeated Calamity Ganon just three days after the voice of the Princess woke him from his sleep. The battle leaves him wounded, but alive, and miraculously, the Champions awaken in their Divine Beasts, unharmed. At first, it seems that all will settle itself in an end come far quicker than anyone could have imagined.Then Link disappears of his own accord, and no one, not even his former closest friends can find him. Perhaps too burdened by a past he cannot drag back from the void, or too smothered by the reality of that past come back to life, Link runs, and disappears into the wild, unfamiliar Hyrule, where his former friends cannot hope to seek him out.Except one, of course, who isn’t foolish enough to expect the knight of the past to ever emerge from the broken boy who beat the Calamity back so fiercely out of guilt.
Relationships: Link/Revali (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 101
Kudos: 820





	1. Don’t Feel Like I’m Ahead

**Author's Note:**

> Look—look, I know. I know Shades of Blue is out there and I haven't updated it in nearly a month, I know. I'm in the middle of the chapter on that and this idea sprang upon me and dragged me by the neck to the keyboard, okay? Some of y'all's works are getting me thinking, what can I say? And not everything can fit into the behemoth fic, so here it is! 
> 
> Anyway, enjoy lol.
> 
> (Title and chapter titles are inspired by the song Hands Tied by Billy Lockett)

He woke up alone, blinded by a burning white light and a voice calling to him, rattling in his mind and scattering away any vague thoughts he might have had before waking. His mind was a muddle, dense and confused, his vision tilting and spinning as he tried to blink away the daze. Stumbling to his feet, he hardly heard the voice at all, let alone really comprehended what the girl—it was definitely a girl’s voice—was trying to say to him. All he knew was his head felt stuffed with cotton, his chest was numb, and he had  _ no idea  _ where he was. 

The final realization sent his body into full blown panic, and he looked frantically around the dimly lit room he was in. It looked like some kind of cave, too dark to make out many details. Four blurry walls, what might have been a door, and the strange blue bed...thing he had woken up in. 

After a few seconds, his eyes finally landed on a glowing...something at the far corner of the room. It was a lumpy sort of thing made of the same brownish stone as the walls and floor. There was something with soft light glowing at the top, blinking gently in the otherwise dark room. 

He stumbled toward it, his legs like jelly, and all but collapsed as he wrenched the smaller thing from the pedestal. The girl’s voice was talking again, but the words were distant, foggy and distorted. They hardly made any sense in his ears, and if they did, he couldn’t focus long enough to think through what she was saying. 

A deep rumbling set off as he pulled the little glowing box close to his chest. Slats in the far wall which he hadn’t noticed before began to pull upward, revealing another room, light slowly leaking through. He lurched toward it, the glowing of the object in his hands already forgotten in the desperate need for escape. 

But the next room did not offer an escape. It was more a hall than a room, slightly more lit than the last, with two chests and a couple of rotten wooden crates. The light was only marginally brighter here, and the air remained stale and heavy. 

Unsure what else to do, he opened the old chests with shaking hands. They held nothing but a shirt and pants. Pulling the worn clothes on stiltedly, he tried to ignore the spiderwebs of scars on his chest that he couldn’t remember getting. 

By the time he had forced his feet into the cracking boots, he was breathing a little easier, but his chest still felt fluttery and weak. His heart was pounding almost painfully, thumping against his ribs and making his ears throb, a drumbeat he couldn’t recognize, just the same as he did not recognize anything around him, or even himself really. 

The scars on his chest marked a battle he likely lost. The echoes of those wounds were set deep into his skin, but he had no memory of what nightmare had scattered starbursts across his ribs, what fire could have burned itself up his neck and over his cheek, what—what blade could have carved jagged bites into his side and swipes on his arms. He could not remember, no matter how desperately he searched his dazed thoughts. And that terrified him. 

Suddenly, the strange little box in his hands hummed, and he flinched, staring down at it blearily. A strange set of symbols had appeared across its surface, glowing softly blue in the darkness. Most prominently, an eye—and across the room, the same eye, on the top of a pedestal sort of thing, though it was orange rather than blue. 

Maybe if he…

He shuffled over to the pedestal slowly, the worn soles of the boots hardly making a sound on the smoothed floor. It looked almost like the thing he’d taken this smaller thing from, but it was sleeker and shorter, less ornate. Maybe it would let him out, like taking the little box had opened the other room. 

He wanted out. Badly. He didn’t like this room, didn’t like how dark and oppressive it was, how empty and—and hollow it felt. 

Cautiously, he put the little box he’d taken against the surface of the pedestal. It immediately flashed blue, and the floor thrummed again, like an old lock releasing, of gears churning. 

The door slipped open, and he hurried toward the rays of sunlight streaking over the floor, too desperate for freedom to hear the voice calling to him again. All he knew was he needed  _ out  _ and  _ now.  _

He scrambled up the rock ledge and out the broken open doorway, tumbling into the grass and panting the fresh air, taking big, desperate gulps of it as he sprawled out on his back. The little box slipped out of his hand in the fall, skittering along the ground until it came to rest a few feet away, a yellow pointed marker blinking up at the world. 

It went unnoticed for now. All he could see was the sky, blue and wide and bright. It was mostly clear above him, a few weak clouds floating lazily by. But it was the sun that he craved, and the warmth it brought with it as it shone down on him. He hadn’t even realized he was shivering until he stopped, the heat of midday warming his shaking hands and tingling toes. At some point, his eyes slipped closed, and there was nothing but the warmth and the sounds of the world around him.

He laid there until he caught his breath again, sighing heavily and holding it for a moment. Then he pushed himself up on unsteady legs and looked at the unfamiliar woods around him. Hunger loomed on the horizon, and he would need to find something to tide him over until...until he figured out what had happened to him. He looked around quickly, taking in as much of his surroundings as he could stomach. 

There was a worn stone path leading down somewhere, and below him a smattering of trees and unfamiliar stone ruins and further, further, the dark shadow of a great castle, too distant to make out much more than its eerie silhouette. Like a dark omen, waiting on the horizon. 

He looked away, and started down the hill. The need to move outweighed the fear blooming in his chest at the threatening darkness looming in the distance. 

******

Two days (and one incident of near frostbite) later, he climbed the ladder up to the roof of the Temple of Time, as the old man had called it. He had no memory of this place, no memory of anything at all. He was as empty and confused as he was when he first stumbled his way out of the cave. 

The girl’s voice had spoken to him a few times, all but begging him to remember, to  _ hurry _ before it was too late, whatever that meant. But nothing, no amount of introspection (or hours lost staring into the campfire, trying desperately to think backward) could drag up anything but panic at the emptiness and cloudiness in his mind. 

So he tried not to think about it. He had a brief, uncomfortable,  _ awful  _ conversation with the old man, who recommended he check out the shrines on the plateau. There were four. Lumpy little stumps of odd stone that glowed blue when he held the little box—Sheikah Slate, apparently—up to them, letting him in and forcing him to do odd puzzles. The slate could do many things, and none of the puzzles were terribly difficult. But the old man had promised him a reward for completing the shrine tasks. 

The shrines were interesting and all, but it was the paraglider which really caught his attention. The plateau was surrounded by cliffs, all of which were too high for him to make it safely to the bottom. A jump would kill him, and he couldn’t climb down sheer rock for that long. No, he  _ needed  _ that paraglider to leave, and...he...he  _ wanted it.  _

So he pushed his way through every puzzle, every fight, every endless additional task he had to do until the old man had disappeared before his very eyes in a haze of green fire and told him to find him where the points of the shrines would intersect if he connected them. 

After a bit of map reading, he headed for the Temple, and here he was. Climbing its endless ladder toward the eerie green glow in the bell tower, feeling shaken and strangely afraid of what he would find when he pulled himself up into the alcove. He had a painful, unsettling feeling in his chest—a horrible sense that he was going to discover something he wouldn’t like at all. 

But he kept climbing. He had no other choice. 

Less than ten minutes later, he wished he had never climbed the Temple’s ladder. He wished that he had stayed in that terrible cave, or risked the climb down from the Plateau himself, rather than hear the terrible story the old man told him. 

“You fought valiantly,” the King said—and he had  _ lied,  _ he was a  _ king,  _ not an old man—his voice somber and heavy, but his expression too serious for Link to gain any comfort from it. “When your fate took an unfortunate turn…”

He stared, stunned, too shaken to even attempt to say anything in response, too terrified by the implications of what the man was saying. 

He  _ died. _ He was saying that he had  _ died. _

The King continued to speak, but he hardly heard a word he said until the paraglider was put in his hands. He blinked, looking blankly up at the old man and trying to corral his frantic thoughts. At that moment, his expression could be nothing but fearfully numb, his whole body shaking as he tried to keep himself centered, somehow. The King’s expression did not change. He only pushed the glider more firmly into his hands and disappeared in a burst of bright green flames. 

For several seconds, he could do nothing but stare at the space where he had just been, too numb and empty to have any coherent thought on the nightmare he had just been told. The wind began to howl angrily, dark storm clouds descending over the Plateau, cloaking it in thick fog. He shuffled to the glassless window, watching as the rain began to fall with a hollow, heavy feeling in his stomach.

No memory came to him as the rain began to pour. No moment, no fragment of the trauma he was sure existed came to mind. His memory was as terrifyingly empty as it had been two days before when he first woke up. 

And he knew now, why he had woken up alone in a dark, enclosed cave. 

Because he had  _ died. _ He died protecting someone who he couldn’t even picture in his mind. Some Princess, some girl the King has not even described beyond the fact that she was his daughter. And he died protecting her. He died protecting her and he couldn’t even remember who she  _ was.  _

He couldn’t even remember who  _ he  _ was. 

His eyes were drawn once again to the grim shadow of the castle, far in the distance, surrounded by sickly black and pink smoke. Somewhere, in the middle of that nightmare, was apparently the girl he had been sworn to protect one hundred years ago. The girl he had evidently died to save, who had put him in that cave to be revived.

He couldn’t remember her. 

But as he stared at the center of his dead kingdom, the place where just days ago the monster had swirled around until the girl’s voice had pulled it away, he realized that he couldn’t fail her again. Or any of the mysterious others, these Champions the King had mentioned only in passing—he couldn’t fail them again either. 

He remembered nothing of his life or the battle he had apparently lost. But it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. The guilt would destroy him if he waited a moment longer to sit with this disgusting feeling in his chest, knowing she was waiting for him, and knowing that he had  _ died  _ and  _ failed  _ all these people. No. No, he couldn’t wait. 

He had to end this. 

******

It wouldn’t stop raining. 

The drops pounded against the heavy fabric of the paraglider as he flew down from the Great Plateau’s high tower. It drenched his worn shirt and made his boots squelch on the broken stone as he stole a rusted sword off a sleeping bokoblin. It puddled in the large recesses of the rolling field, making the feet of the giant spider-like machines walking around him slip and skid. It made his hands slip on the smooth stone as he scrambled up the outer wall and dove behind a crumbling pillar as the machine above him fired. Even when he sprinted into the first doorway, he could hear it continuing to pound against the ground outside.

The castle was a mess of crumbling stone and scorched wood. He skirted around what areas he could inside, hurrying past entire collapsed passages, doorways painted with noxious black sludge, dimly lit rooms where lizard monsters slept camouflaged on the walls. The slate tried to load him a map, but it was fragmented and flickering, as if the evil here was too thick in the air for the odd little device to give him any help.

The passages that he could walk through were as damaged as the outer walls had been. The rugs running down the corridors were torn and charred, the paintings along the walls ripped to thin shreds of canvas or missing entirely from their frames. Walls were covered in blast marks, windows were shattered or their glass was blackened, old swords were rusted stuck in their pedestals or in the dead remains of a few defeated machines. 

There were far more moving than there were unmoving. 

He passed one room with crowds of monsters sloppily eating rotten food off of many collapsed wooden tables. In another, more lizard monsters paced around endless high bookshelves, razor sharp boomerangs in their twitching hands. Another, with weapons lining the walls, had only one large, dark moblin, crouched with a sword taller than Link, waiting without end for whatever unfortunate person walked into its range.

Link did not go into the room. He did not enter most of the rooms. Some had weapons lying around, which he grabbed impulsively, ignoring the shaking in his hands as he tested the different swords out. Before the feeling of nausea and panic could overtake him in any of the dark, broken rooms, he kept moving, spiraling higher and higher, closer and closer to the toxic presence rotting in the higher rooms of the castle.

When he reemerged from the castle’s interior, much higher along the path where the pink beams of the flying machines circled far too close for comfort, the rain continued to fall in endless frigid sheets. He hugged the rock wall at the edge of the path, inching his way slowly higher, the stolen sword he had just nicked from another room digging roughly into his back. 

One of the beams of pink light edged too close to the cracked toes of his boots, and he flinched away from it, all but conforming to the wall in his effort to evade the sickly light. Somehow, he managed it, and the light slowly crawled past him. With frantic breathing and trembling steps, he continued up the path.

There was no castle interior to hide in now. If there ever were any buildings here, they were gone, leaving nothing but open space and a crumbling stone path crawling with pink light and machines keen on shooting at him. No less than five of them zeroed in on him immediately, their bodies glowing pink as their eyes began to swirl. 

He didn’t care. He didn’t stop. He only continued, until he reached a wide, sheltered doorway from which he could just barely see a blood red, squirming mass, hanging from the ceiling. 

He stumbled away from the doorway, clinging to a pillar nearby and shutting his eyes tightly. He couldn’t,  _ couldn’t  _ go in there yet. Not now. He—he needed—just a minute longer, he just needed a minute more. Panting for air, he slumped against the pillar a bit and turned away, looking out to the west where blurry, unfamiliar Hyrule was a comfort rather than a curse. 

The sun had long set since he had first stumbled through the gate, but he couldn’t see the stars even as the clouds began to thin. The moon bled red, strands of bloody light oozing into the rest of the sky. If the stars were there, they were blotted out by the smoke surrounding the castle and the lingering rain which refused to stop fully. It stubbornly remained in drizzling waves as he hesitated just outside what he knew would be the battle he had come here for. 

It was surprisingly quiet. The machines couldn’t see him under the overhang, and there were no monsters out in the open. All he could hear was his own panicked breathing and the wind whistling through the odd shapes of blasted stone around the castle’s center. There was no sound loud enough to distract him from the intrusive thoughts of what evil waited for him above the throne room floor. 

He had no idea how long he sat there, clinging with white knuckles to a pillar while the monster continued to writhe in its confines behind him, but by the time he managed to take his trembling hands from the surface of the cold stone, the rain had finally,  _ finally  _ stopped. It’s mark stayed in the puddles glinting moonlight back up at him from the castle path below, and in the clouds slowly retreating along the skyline, but the worst of the storm seemed to have passed. 

It was ironic, he decided, unable to muster even the slightest amusement at the fact as he pulled one of the many swords he had stolen from his back and turned toward the throne glinting gold at the other end of the large room. The storm passed almost as soon as he was set to begin the battle. 

He pushed thoughts of the irony aside, tightened his grip on the handle of the stolen sword, and stepped into the sanctum.

******

“We’ll need to find someone who can repair stone, or at least rebuild some sections of the castle so we can begin using it again—oh! And I’d like to visit the remains of the villages and see if we could repair them as well. Perhaps we could use the stone from there to patch some of the castle’s weaknesses…”

“Goron City has gotten a lot bigger since I saw it last,” Daruk said proudly, smiling widely. “I could check with the new boss, see if they’ve got anybody they can spare. If they can handle Death Mountain, I’m sure they could figure out your little gray rocks.”

The Princess laughed, earning an even bigger grin from Daruk. “I certainly hope so,” she chuckled. “Although we have no real burden of time. As far as I’ve seen, no one desperately needs housing. It seems the people are far more content to travel now, moving from place to place. Perhaps we can simply aid the stable system in maintaining function…”

Urbosa hummed thoughtfully. “Chief Riju has told me they are everywhere across Hyrule. Even near Gerudo. I would have thought the climate was too inhospitable, but the stable is quite populated.”

“I’m sure if we could build one closer to Zora’s Domain, it would be used as well,” Mipha interjected in a soft voice, though it had lost some of the timidity she once had. “Sidon says that we get quite a few more Hylian visitors than before.”

Daruk laughed. “That’s the same thing the new boss told me! There’s a stable by the bottom of the mountain, and a whole new inn right in the middle of town. They even made armor to protect against Death Mountain’s heat. Not sure how it works, though. I guess it sells better than the elixirs you used last time around, Princess.”

She smiled briefly at his words, but there was a familiar glint in her eyes which meant she was thinking deeply on something. “We’ll need to make use of the stables to communicate for the time being, at least. Maybe if we could—”

“Shouldn’t we at least  _ consult _ your little knight on all this?”

They all turned, the Princess looking a bit stunned at the sudden question jarring her from her thoughts. 

Revali had been quiet since they had all arrived in Kakariko Village. He was the first to turn up, but hadn’t said anything beyond the most required greetings before retreating to the edge of the little Sheikah room. Even as the others had slowly arrived, he had only nodded before continuing to stare out the window, a dismal sort of frown overtaking his (admittedly, typical) sour expression. 

As they all turned to look at him, they found him already staring, his eyes dark and a bit weary. He had no bow strapped to his back, and his armor was ripped at one side. His feathers were ruffled, braids disturbed. It looked as if he had flown straight here when he woke, but surprisingly, it did nothing to make him appear weaker. If anything, he somehow looked  _ more  _ dangerous all distressed without his weapon of choice. Perhaps it was the anger clearly burning in his eyes. 

“He  _ is  _ the only one of us who has seen Hyrule as it is now, isn’t he?” he went on in a bored tone after a pause, looking between them all as if daring them to challenge him. “None of us have seen anything but the roads here and our own homes. Unless all of your  _ sight seeing _ is the reason this meeting took so long to take place?” 

The Princess colored, her brow furrowing low and dangerous. 

Revali only cocked an eyebrow. “Well?”

“You might have a point,” Daruk said suddenly, scratching his chin. “I came here pretty quick after I realized what happened. Didn’t see much except Eldin and the edge of Lanayru…met Mipha along the road, but we kept to the paths pretty close. The little guy had to have seen more than we did, huh?”

He nudged Mipha lightly, though she still nearly toppled over with the force of it. She didn’t seem to mind though, patting his arm before adding, “I only had a little while to speak to Sidon about the state of Zora’s Domain before I realized I ought to come here. We didn’t have time to speak about the land downstream of us. I can’t say I know much of anything beyond the ruins we saw as we came here.”

“Gerudo is much further away, but I’m afraid I have to agree,” Urbosa said, finally drawing the Princess’s attention back to the conversation at hand. “I didn’t see anything beyond what was once along the road. It’s entirely possible Link has a better grasp on these things than we do.”

Daruk frowned suddenly. “Where is the little guy anyway?”

Silence fell. They all looked to the Princess, who was strangely silent. 

“Well?” Revali burst out, scowling. 

The Princess jumped, looking at him with wide eyes for a moment before avoiding his gaze entirely, wringing her hands with a blush. “Link...it…” she fumbled for a moment, then sighed. “It isn’t likely Link knows any more than the rest of us. I...I actually believe he knows  _ less.” _

“What?” Urbosa muttered. 

“But…” Mipha frowned, a downturn which they were unaccustomed to seeing, even in the slightest. “It has been a century since we first fought. Surely Link—”

The Princess was already shaking her head, a pained twist to her mouth. “You don’t understand,” she said a bit desperately. “Link, he—he fell that day too, and I sent him to the Shrine of Resurrection we had discovered a few weeks before—”

Urbosa looked stunned. “Zelda—”

“I didn’t know what it would do!” she cried, her voice warbling and quiet. “The Master Sword, it...it said he could still be saved. It was our only choice. Purah believed it would take time to heal his wounds, but her estimates never showed it would take—”

“One hundred years,” Mipha breathed. 

Zelda nodded miserably. “He was healed, but he—he doesn’t remember—anything!”

Urbosa held her by her shoulders, grip firm even as her voice grew soft. “Zelda, where is he? We can still speak to him, see what he knows. If he has seen more of what Hyrule is like now than we have—”

“No, you don’t  _ understand,”  _ she interrupted again, her voice rising in pitch. “He—he only woke up three days before we defeated Calamity Ganon.”

_ “What?!” _

Several of them shouted it at once. The only person who seemed to keep even a modicum of composure was Urbosa, but the tightening of her hands on the Princess’s shoulders was sign enough of her surprise. Daruk’s jaw hung open in shock. Mipha looked like she might be sick, her hands over her mouth and eyes wide. Revali had finally uncrossed his arms and was staring at the Princess, looking utterly gobsmacked. 

“How did he—” he cut off, shaking his head and squinting at her. “How did he defeat the Calamity if he had only—” He didn’t finish his question, making a frustrated noise and turning away. 

“That’s why he didn’t free us,” Mipha mumbled, looking somewhere in the distance. “He didn’t remember.”

“Who  _ cares  _ if he didn’t remember!” Revali shouted, and Mipha looked up at him with stunned eyes. “We’re here  _ aren’t  _ we? What does it matter?” He turned back to the Princess. “It’s been  _ days.  _ I—some of us have been here for  _ days.  _ Where is he?”

She fumbled again, her voice still shaking as she spoke. “H-he was injured, I-I-I brought him here w-when—when it was over, so he could be healed.”

“He was  _ injured?” _

“He’s fine now!”

“Have you spoken to him?” Mipha asked, nearly begged. 

She looked down. “He won’t speak to me, not even to sign. I don’t—”

Revali cut her off sharply. “Do you have any idea if he remembers you?”

“I—I spoke to him briefly when he woke up, but no—”

“Then why would he speak to you? He doesn’t  _ know  _ you.”

She gaped at him, as if she hadn’t understood a word he said. “But h-he...he defeated the Calamity, he came so quickly, perhaps he...perhaps he remembers enough to...”

“You don’t know that, Zelda,” Urbosa said gently. 

“You just told us he doesn’t remember anything,” Revali pointed out in a much more seething tone, his eyes narrowed to barely more than slits. “If he’s lost all of his memories, why would he trust you enough to speak to you?”

“But he  _ has  _ to remember!” she said a bit desperately. “He—he—h-he still defeated the Calamity, he still—”

“Because who  _ else  _ was going to do it?  _ You?!” _

Silence fell, and the Princess’s cheeks burned beet red. The others all wore mixed expressions of shock and horror. 

Revali scoffed and turned away. “I’ve heard enough,” he muttered, glancing back briefly. “You’ve stuffed him at the elder’s or the inn, which is it?”

“Impa’s,” Zelda squeaked. 

Revali turned away once again, quickly found the largest house set above the rest and began to stomp toward it. 

“Wait!” Mipha called, and quickly followed after him. “I’d—I would like to see him too, if that’s alright.”

Revali didn’t look back, but he didn’t shove Mipha away either as she fell into step with him. Zelda watched them go, her eyes wide and a bit teary. Urbosa looked worn, her hands still resting protectively on the Princess’s shoulders, but her eyes on the other two Champions heading toward Impa’s home. Even Daruk looked uncomfortable by what they had just discussed, scratching at his head with a frown as the others disappeared into Impa’s house. 

“Zelda,” Urbosa began a moment later, her tone careful, but firm. “You said that Link awoke only three days before defeating Calamity Ganon. Explain.”

The Princess’s expression pinched, and she wrung her hands again. “I felt him begin to wake, so I spoke to him, guided him out of the Shrine of Resurrection as best I could. The Sheikah Slate allowed him entry to the shrines located on the Great Plateau. M-my father’s spirit convinced him to visit the shrines in exchange for th-the paraglider—”

Urbosa frowned, and Daruk suddenly perked up. “Didn’t the little guy get that from—”

“I-I don’t know how my father had it, o-or how it came to be on the Plateau,” she said, shrinking a bit into herself, and Daruk went quiet. “But Link, he...he  _ wanted _ it, a-and so he agreed. When Link activated the Towers, the Calamity reacted, and I had to restrain it once again.” 

She shuddered hard, and went on much quieter than before. “I b-believe my father spoke to him, and gave him his glider, but I didn’t see him again until he had arrived at the castle’s gates. I knew it was too soon, but he wouldn’t stop…”

Urbosa nodded, and she fell silent. “After the battle, did you speak to him?”

“He was injured,” she said once again. “Not fatally, but he was barely conscious. I-I...I was so scared that he w-would...he would die again, and I—” 

The Princess cut off sharply as the doors to Impa’s home burst open, a young Sheikah girl running quickly from the doors followed closely by Mipha, who had her spear in hand. Revali appeared in a blur of blue, flying over them and landing hard in front of the Princess, Urbosa, and Daruk. 

“What happened?” Daruk demanded. 

“P-P-Princess!” the young Sheikah girl called, frantic and panting for breath. She came to a skidding halt next to Revali, trembling. “M-Master L-L-Link! He is g-g-gone!”

“What?!” she gasped. Her eyes went to the house, as if Link would appear from behind the woodwork on the roof. “W-where did he—”

“He left his things,” Mipha said, sounding shaken.

“He took th-the Sheikah Slate a-a-and his w-weapons, b-but nothing else,” the girl corrected nervously. “Th-there’s no sign of where he went, a-anywhere!”

“It’s obvious,” Revali said with a huff. “You’ve scared him into flight. He doesn’t remember us, doesn’t remember  _ you.”  _ He pointed sharply at the Princess. “And I’m sure you’ve been so  _ pleasant  _ reminding him of that. So he’s run off rather than have to eventually face you.”

“We have to find him,” the Princess said immediately, her eyes going everywhere as she thought. “We have to—”

“But Princess, h-he could be anywhere by now!” the Sheikah girl said, somewhat hysterically. “We d-don’t even know when h-he left!”

“He made it to the castle in three days, he really could have gone anywhere,” Urbosa added grimly. 

The Princess’s expression fell further, and she resumed her nervous wringing of her hands. “Where would he have gone? We have to—we have to search for him. H-he wasn’t fully healed yet, if—he could be in Hateno, or—”

“The homes closer to Zora’s Domain, he could be there,” Mipha added. 

“We have to search them—anywhere he would have gone—”

“Do you expect him to go skipping merrily home?”

They all turned to look at Revali, stunned silent. He didn’t wait for them to gather their wits. 

“Why would he go anywhere he went one hundred years ago when he doesn’t  _ remember it?” _ he all but spat. 

The Princess balked, but clenched her hands into fists and spoke through a thunderous frown. “As if you would have any idea where he would go! All you ever did was insult him!”

“I didn’t hear much better from you until you decided  _ out of the blue  _ the two of you were  _ best of friends!” _

“Link—”

“I’m not going to listen to this any longer,” Revali cut her off and turned away again. “You’re all fools, and I’m not going to waste my time playing into anymore fantasies. Good luck finding your precious  _ knight. _ No matter that he  _ died _ one hundred years ago.”

Without another word, he dropped lower to the ground and summoned his gale with barely a flick of his wings outward. In a harsh gust of wind and a single flap of his wings, he shot high into the air over Kakariko’s cliffs, heading sharply west and rapidly disappearing from sight. 

All the others could do was stare at the trail of wind he left in his wake and the chaos slowly descending on the village as news of the Hero’s disappearance spread like wildfire over dry brush. 

******

Hyrule was not as she remembered it. 

The last one hundred years were a blur of darkness, malice, and an endless battle to maintain any shred of her sanity within the fog. For an indeterminate amount of time, which she realized once it ended had dragged on for one hundred years, she felt nothing but the encroaching darkness around her. 

Then the very earth around her seemed to rumble, to churn, and short interludes of light slowly replaced the darkness of her prison. Never long enough to see much more than the briefest glimpses of the world she had once known well. Never long enough to see the true damage which had been done. 

But before she could even become accustomed to these tiny moments of clarity, the blinding light of daily life was thrust back upon her with all the suddenness that the darkness had previously drowned her. She awoke alone, perfectly unharmed in the middle of Naboris’s sheltered inner maze, her scimitar and shield at her side as they always were. If it weren’t for the rapidly disappearing malice coating the floors and the side of Naboris’s terminal, she might have believed no time at all had passed. 

The next day was spent traveling back to Gerudo Town, discovering an entire century had passed, meeting the new chief, and attempting to understand everything that had changed and everything which would come. It was only when a somewhat frantic Gerudo traveler returned the following day, with stories of a terrible battle in the fields of Central Hyrule, and two Hylians who had emerged from said battle, that she realized she needed to find Zelda. 

Chief Riju, though young, was surprisingly mature (and where had she seen  _ that  _ before) and plenty capable of handling the Town without her direct assistance. So she left, making her way quickly through the desert and western Faron in an almost perfect mirror of her path one hundred years ago, when she had run the opposite direction in a desperate attempt to reach Naboris before Calamity Ganon could destroy more of Hyrule than it already had. 

Walking the path now showed her how deeply they had failed. Everywhere she walked as soon as she left the sheltered confines of Gerudo, there were the old ruins of places she had passed dozens of times in her journeys to see Zelda and her mother. Entire villages leveled, exchanges and outposts, once teeming with Hylian soldiers and travelers, now desolate and empty, the rotting remains of monster camps taking hold of the few buildings still standing. 

Not even the roads had survived. There were wagons everywhere, their axles snapped or wheels broken into pieces, the decaying fabric of their covers flapping in the soft breeze. Chunks of the stone paths were randomly missing, gouged out and gone, while other side roads which she remembered passing were grown over with grass and weeds. 

It was the emptiness which unsettled her the most, however. She passed only a handful of travelers on the entire route. Most others she had seen only from a distance as she hurried past the strange horse shaped buildings along the more preserved. Even then, there were only five or so people at every stop. A mere shadow of the crowds she had forced her way through in years past. 

In that respect, Kakariko was more a comfort than even her own Gerudo Town had been. Like Gerudo, Kakariko benefited from the natural defenses of the mountains around it, and so had no real visible damage from the Calamity’s attacks. The Sheikah still traveled their roads and ran their shops. Yes, the names had changed and the faces she recognized were largely gone, but she took comfort where she could find it. 

The real relief, however, came with seeing Zelda alive and well, the same as she had looked when their paths had diverged at the bottom of Mount Lanayru. Her knight was nowhere to be seen, but if Urbosa was being completely honest, he had hardly crossed her mind yet. He was a smart boy, and he had more than proven he could take care of himself. 

Urbosa had no children, no family who could possibly still be alive. And she had always cared for Zelda as if she were her own, particularly after her mother had passed away. Seeing her alive—when a part of her had shamefully accepted the fact the poor girl was more likely to die than unlock her sealing power—was enough to wipe the thought of damn near anyone else from her mind. 

Now, she was beginning to feel the weight of that forgetfulness as she tried to calm Zelda down. It had been a week since Link had disappeared from the rooms above Impa’s home. No one they had yet sent out or spoken to had seen him, even in passing. It was as if he had wiped himself from the land. 

Zelda was not taking it well. She had been in a downright panic the entire first night, scrambling for resources which no longer existed to find her missing knight. There was no army to call on, no Royal Guard to send out, no people at garrisons, towns, or checkpoints to send word to the Princess they had seen him. All Hyrule had now was roughly two hundred people spread thin across the vast land, with nothing but a shambling stable system to connect them. It would take  _ days, _ possibly  _ weeks  _ for news to travel, even if they could get it to do so. 

When they discovered that they had no means of sending out a search, Zelda decided almost instantly that they had to search themselves. But this was not a journey to take lightly. They no longer knew their home lands. From just the short walk across the seemingly unchangeable desert, Urbosa knew what a century could shift without warning. If they were to search themselves, they would need a plan. 

This had occupied Zelda for some time. She spent hours pouring over the maps the Sheikah had been kind enough to fetch from the stable at the base of the Duelling Peaks, marking points of interest and trying to theorize where Link may have gone. Every time Urbosa went by the room she had sequestered herself in, she could hear Zelda muttering about different places he had liked in the past, areas she remembered him speaking about, even in passing. The most minute of interactions suddenly became as important as a note pointing to his destination. 

The obsessiveness with which Zelda was attempting this task concerned Urbosa greatly, but no amount of coaxing or near begging could convince her to pause for even the slightest reprieve. The Princess could not be swayed. She would find her knight no matter the time it took.

It seemed the other Champions were just as worried as Zelda was, though they did not linger long in Kakariko Village. Daruk had gone back to Goron City to see if anyone had seen Link there, or at least if he could muster some support to scout out some “spots the little guy might have hidden out in.” Mipha had followed his directive and went home to Zora’s Domain, intent to search the rivers for any signs of Link. 

No one had seen or heard from Revali since he galed away. He had always been pompous, and angry, and a bit too keen for a fight, but what he said the day he left was far past anything he had shot at them a century ago. Urbosa had no idea  _ what _ he was up to, but if he stayed and caused as much strife as he had the first day, well...it might be best to let him cool off elsewhere before interacting with the Princess again. 

For both of their sakes, of course. 

Either way, it seemed Urbosa was the only Champion left to ensure the Princess didn’t work herself into the ground. All the others were busy conducting their own searches or...cooling off, hopefully, leaving her to either return to Gerudo or look after the Princess. Gerudo had no immediate need for her, and Zelda was very content to run herself rabid before she even dreamed of taking a break. 

Hence why she currently had the girl held over her shoulder as she walked calmly but purposefully away from the Sheikah elder’s home. The villagers gave them a wide berth, watching their exit with stunned expressions. To be fair, it was quite a sight. The Princess of Hyrule Kingdom, tossed like a rag doll over the long thought dead Urbosa, former chief of the Gerudo, as she marched deliberately out of town. All while said Princess yelled her disagreement with this treatment for all to hear. 

“Urbosa, put me down this instant!” Zelda shouted indignantly, pushing up on her shoulders and trying to squirm away. “Urbosa!”

“I’m sorry, Little Bird, but no.”

“But—you can’t—I have to—”

“If you’re going to say that you have to find your knight, I know,” she cut her off calmly, taking the turn out of Kakariko and into the mountains. “I am well aware of his disappearance, as is everyone in the village.”

“B-but—we have to—Urbosa— _ please—” _

She stopped abruptly, dropping her to the ground and holding her in place by her shoulders. “If you want to find someone who has disappeared, Princess, you won’t find them inked into your maps or written in your plans. You’ll find them out there, in the world.”

Zelda abruptly went still, as if she hadn’t even thought of that. “Oh.”

“Yes.”

They were both silent for a moment, before Zelda’s expression shifted to a thoughtful frown which could only precede one thing. A long discussion of all their possible checkpoints and direction of travel. Likely with every other side course they could take, every person they ought to speak to, and their eventual endpoint somewhere she would least expect. Urbosa watched her think for a moment, a ghost of a smirk quirking her lips upward. 

“We’re close enough to Hateno Village, we could speak to Purah, see if she could…”

******

“Your Great Eagle Bow was found, some days after the attacks. It was a bit damaged at the ends, but we worked very hard to repair it. No one has touched it since, I assure you.”

Revali frowned down at the bow in his hands, looking at it from every angle possible. “Who did the repair work?”

Kaneli rocked backward, signing. “Oh, what was her name...I believe it was…”

“Trell, wasn’t it?”

“Aha! Yes, she was such a good bow maker…”

“But only adequate at repairs, it seems,” he grumbled under his breath. “My thanks for keeping it safe. This bow means quite a deal to me.”

Kaneli smiled. “Not at all! I’m glad to see it back in the proper hands. It was wasting away tucked up in here, out of use. A weapon of that mastery ought to be on the wings of a capable flyer. No one but you could wield that in a fight.”

Revali frowned. “No other Rito…” he glanced over the elder’s shoulder, where the top of the shrine outside the village glowed a bright sky blue. With a shake of his head, he looked at the elder once more. “The Flight Range, is it still in good repair?”

“Oh, yes. Not many of our warriors use it these days, but I know of one, Teba, who visits it frequently enough to train. I’m sure he’s kept it in fine shape.”

“Hmph. I’d like to see it myself.”

“It’s yours, my boy,” Kaneli said with a smaller smile. “Nothing has changed that, I assure you. We have other areas to use for training. Your sanctuary remains your sanctuary.”

Revali nodded, beak tight and expression a bit stonier than before, but the elder didn’t bat an eye. He only rocked in his chair again and hummed. 

“Will you be remaining here, then, Master Revali?”

He looked a bit stunned by the title, but recovered quickly enough. “I may have business elsewhere, but for the moment, yes.”

Kaneli hummed. “Vah Medoh seems keen to remain here as well, perched as it is.”

He scoffed lightly, waving away the idea like a pesky gnat. “Medoh does as she pleases. Who knows when she’ll decide she’s seen enough and go soaring elsewhere. With the Calamity gone, her task is finished.”

Kaneli hummed again. “She has been watching Hebra for quite some time now, though why, I am not sure…”

Revali looked over at him quickly, hands clenched. “Hebra?”

“Indeed. Since, oh...a week or so after you left, I would say...yes, I remember. We had such a strange visitor in the middle of the night, a lone Hylian—it does happen these days, but an old man can still worry...Nekk—he crafts armor for visitors, you see—came to me the following morning, claiming a young Hylian had come in the dead of night, bought only a snowquill tunic and disappeared into thin air.  _ Literally.  _ He was quite shaken, you see, for people don’t just suddenly evaporate before your eyes.”

Revali glanced once toward Hebra, a bit wildly, then back to the elder. “This Hylian, did they—”

“Well, I’m not sure I got a very good look at them…” Kaneli said with a thoughtful expression. “But ever since that day, Vah Medoh has been quite fixated on Hebra...yes. And the strangest thing! The shrine, it had been orange before, and now it is blue! To think of it! What could it mean…”

Revali looked as if he would burst at any moment. “I must see to something, excuse me—” he said bluntly, his voice sharp and short. 

He gave no other farewell before he hurried from the room, barely clearing the doorway before calling his gale and spiraling high into the air. The elder watched him with a vaguely bemused expression, rocking slowly in his chair. 

“It seems one hundred years has not eased his restless nature,” he muttered with another hooting laugh. “Oh, Vah Medoh you are wiser than us all…”

******

Another week of fruitless searches later, Princess Zelda made her first appearance in Zora’s Domain to much pomp and many excited shouts. No less than three of the guards on the way into the Domain met her quite enthusiastically, shaking her arm near off and grinning widely. In a wave of murmuring, everyone knew immediately who had just crossed the bridge, and everyone came clambering toward the front of the Domain. 

And it only got worse as she entered the Domain properly. It didn’t help that a good deal of the Zora crowding around genuinely remembered her visits from a century ago. So many wanted to wish her well, or just to say hello, or tell her who knows what exactly, they only wanted to speak to her. The level of sound became intrusive and grating within seconds, until Zelda was nearly drowning under the din. 

It was only when Mipha and Sidon came to greet her that things calmed a bit. The other Zora backed off a bit, giving Mipha and Sidon a chance to get the Princess out from under the microscope, so to speak. They retreated quickly to the upper floors, away from the eyes of most of the population and out of the potential rain looming overhead. Without even a reintroduction to the king, Mipha and Sidon ushered Zelda away, finding an empty alcove and tucking into it before anyone could follow them. 

Brief greetings were exchanged, but the unplanned nature of their meeting was clear in the air from how fast they all became quiet. There was a nervous sort of unspoken tension among the group, a heaviness perhaps, in the way they ran out of room to speak within seconds of sitting down. Or at least, they ran out of safe topics to distract themselves with. They were all discomforted, and showed it clearly.

“I don’t want to be rude, but…” Zelda began almost as soon as the silence truly fell, looking antsy to speak. “Have you had any signs?”

Both shook their heads. “Our father allowed us to send several scouts out into Upland Zorana, where some of the older Hylian settlements used to be,” Sidon said. “But they returned with nothing to show for it. They also searched the areas downstream, to the same effect.”

“Sidon and I have been searching the rivers nearby, and asking those we pass when we can,” Mipha added, but she sounded just as forlorn as her brother. Perhaps even more so. “He has not been anywhere near here, unless he was very quiet about it…”

Zelda deflated with a sigh, her entire expression falling. “I haven’t heard anything from the others either. Urbosa has gone back to Gerudo Town for now, to see if she can discover a better way for us all to communicate from long distances.”

“Have you heard from Daruk?” Mipha asked. 

She shook her head. “I have been away from Kakariko Village for some time now. He may have sent a message there which I haven’t received, but I doubt Link would have travelled to Eldin…”

She trailed off, then suddenly stood from her seat, her cheeks reddening with either frustration or actual anger. 

“I don’t understand it!” she cried, throwing her hands up as she began to pace a short path in front of her seat. “Why would he leave? We hadn’t done anything! And where could he have gone? Everywhere we’ve been is destroyed. The castle is still in ruins, as is much of Central Hyrule. The Citadel, I’ve been told, is destroyed. I can’t imagine his father’s house in Hateno would remain, and even if it did, Purah has assured us she hasn’t seen him. No one has seen him, anywhere!”

“Not all is lost, yet,” Mipha soothed, though she still looked worried herself. “We have not searched everywhere.”

“Where else can we look? All of the villages, the exchanges and the garrison, they are all destroyed! And he isn’t  _ here—” _

“Pardon the interruption, your highness, but have you considered areas outside of what he knew in the past?”

Zelda stopped, gaping a bit at Sidon, as if the question was a complete non sequitur. “What do you mean?”

Mipha spoke before her brother could, looking down at her lap. “Revali was here, just a week ago…”

The Princess’s brow furrowed. “I don’t understand—he hasn’t found Link—”

“No,” Mipha interjected, as if to settle that fire before it could kindle any hope, or other feelings less civilized. “No, he hasn’t found him. But he did make some...rather keen points, amongst all his...berating of us and our intentions.”

“What do you mean?”

“Revali suggested we spread our search beyond areas Link may have known in his past.”

“But—”

“He made the very good point that Link does not remember where he has been before.”

“But that doesn’t—”

“Zelda,” Mipha cut her off again, a bit louder this time, meeting and holding her gaze with intensity. “Whatever positive ties he held before this battle are gone, severed, and he has not recovered them to our knowledge. And...I suspect he would find no comfort in the places he once knew, even if he  _ did  _ remember them. Why would he want to return to the ruins of his home? It is difficult enough for us, and we are far more prepared.”

“But—but where—” she fidgeted for a moment before bursting out, “Why would he want to go somewhere he  _ hasn’t  _ been before? When—when everything is so different?”

“He hasn’t known anything different.”

“But he  _ has.” _

“No, he hasn’t,” Sidon argued with a bit of a frown. “You told my sister he has lost his memories. To him, he has not known these places. Even if he did regain what he’s lost, he may not feel the same connection he had in the past. This Link, the one who awoke in the Shrine of Resurrection, may be an entirely different person to the one  _ you _ remember from one hundred years ago.”

Zelda shook her head very rapidly, her eyes large in her face and hands clenched into tight fists. “He is not,” she denied immediately. “He—he can’t be.”

“That may be how you feel, your highness,” Sidon said carefully. “It does not seem to be how Link feels, if no one can find him where you suspect him to be. It may be far more likely he has found himself somewhere entirely new. There are a few young Hylian settlements, and the stable network, while sparse, does connect most of the land together. All he would need was a horse to go wherever he wanted within days. It seems to me that this might be the course he took to disappear.”

The Princess deflated once again, sinking back into her seat and barely restraining herself from hanging her head in her hands. “What are we to do, then? How can we find him in a land we no longer know?”

“Simple,” Mipha said with forced cheer. “We follow Revali’s...advice...and search Hyrule properly. We approach it as it is now, not as it was for us before. Then, perhaps we will find Link…”

“If he has any desire to be found,” Sidon muttered, but neither Princess heard him.

******

Across Hyrule, high in the mountains of Hebra, where the snow fell so thick and so cold it made its own slopes and peaks, tucked into a cave made almost entirely of strange icy rock, a long forgotten shrine sat glowing cheerfully. Some weeks ago, seemingly out of the blue, the entire lumpy brown structure had suddenly flared to life in bright orange. It made the mounds of ice blocking the cave flash with an eerie light, as if fire was burning from within the mountain. Perhaps this was what had first drawn attention to it.

For just over an hour previous, a figure bundled in thick clothing had melted the ice blocking the cave’s entrance and hurried into the belly of the shrine. As he disappeared, the shrine’s base had changed colors to a blinding bright blue, the eye on the top coming to life the same warm orange as before. 

There was no other sign showing the change which might have been taking place inside. To the rest of the mountain, nothing was any different from the moments before. A few white pigeons were hopping around on the remains of a campfire, rooting about for anything edible left behind, utterly unconcerned with whatever took place in the cave. The snow still fell gently, the wind still howled, and a great-horned rhinoceros was still snuffling around in a snowdrift trying to eat a wildberry that had fallen off a bush over five minutes ago. 

Nothing changed as the eye at the top of the shrine blinked out, then flashed the same blue as the base. And when the ground shifted slightly, rumbling as the same blue light began to leak from the shrine’s entrance, only the pigeons picking at the dried wood were startled, hopping off the pile and sifting through the snow instead. 

A moment later, the figure in warm clothes reappeared, stepping off the shrine’s platform looking weary and worn, a tired lowness to his brow and a twist in his mouth. 

There were dark bags under his eyes and he was nearly as pale as the weak moonlight filtering through the snow clouds. He dragged a sword behind him that looked near to breaking, the rusted shield on his back not far behind it. His boots were cracked and faded, and the shirt poking out from underneath his thicker tunic was coming to pieces at the neckline. 

None of these things seemed to phase him, however, as he replaced the damaged sword and shield on his back and trudged into the snow. 

After barely two steps out of the cave, someone landed hard right in front of him, putting up an impressive cloud of snow dust. 

At the sound of the landing, the long-horned rhinoceros bounded off down the hill, abandoning its quest for its lost wildberry. He stopped and watched the big beast run away, staring after it for a few seconds, either pondering something or gathering thoughts scattered into space. 

“You make it tremendously difficult to find you with all this teleporting around, you know.”

Link looked back at the Rito who had landed in front of him, watching as he brushed the snow off his scarf and wings. 

They had been avoiding each other for days now—spotting each other from a distance for a few seconds before one of them got too close and the other warped away in streams of blue light. Sometimes, Link would let him get close enough for a few words, but the unsettled feeling in his chest always pushed him to flee eventually. 

There was something...vaguely familiar about this person…something pulling at the empty spaces in his memory. Not painfully, like Zelda’s smiles and frowns and  _ too many questions, _ but softer, a gentler reminder that he...he might have known this person before. 

But that gentle feeling was always pushed away by the harsher sting of regret and the realization that even if he had known him before, he didn’t know him now. Didn’t know anything really. 

He backed away a step, back into the cave, eyes darting once around trying to find an out. There was no easy one. 

His hand dropped to the slate at his side—it would only take a moment to evade him again, to find some other shrine or tower to shelter in for the night. 

“Don’t do that again,” the stranger (or not?) said, sounding exasperated and maybe a bit desperate. “I’m not chasing you any deeper into Hebra in the middle of a storm.”

The exhaustion underneath the annoyance made him pause, his hand falling loosely back to his side. He backed away another step, the howling sound of the wind fading off just a touch as he retreated further into the cave. The not-stranger tracked his movement, following his eyes as they flicked again to the edges, trying to find a way out. 

“I’m not going to drag you back, you know,” he muttered dryly, crossing his arms and making the bow on his back knock on his armor. “I don’t believe I have any more desire to see the Princess than you do…”

He trailed off, and Link paused, waiting, but for what, he wasn’t sure. This was probably the longest they had been in close company, well...ever. Usually Link didn’t wait long before running or teleporting away, and then there would be a few hours before the not-stranger could find him again. 

But now he was hesitating, and he really didn’t have anywhere to go and he was so  _ tired— _

“I see you’ve been to Rito at least once.”

He looked down at the tunic he’d bought weeks ago, in the dead of night when the shopkeeper was more than halfway to sleep. The village was deserted that late at night—it was the only reason he’d even risked it to get warmer clothes. He hadn’t gone anywhere near a settlement since then. 

“I haven’t been to the village much myself,” he went on, frowning just a bit and looking somewhere Link couldn’t see. “It’s too...there’s too many eyes. Too many questions.”

He frowned even deeper, and Link looked away, picking at the loose threads of his undershirt nervously. It seemed he wasn’t the only one entirely out of place. Even if he was the only one who couldn’t remember anything...

“There’s a set of updrafts in Dronoc’s Pass near the village,” the not-stranger said suddenly, drawing Link’s attention back to the present. He was watching him again, his expression inscrutable. “It’s a training ground for aerial archery called the Flight Range. One of  _ those _ sits in front of it.” He pointed at the shrine behind Link. “You’re trying to find them all, aren’t you?”

A long pause settled. Then Link nodded slowly, fighting the urge to grab the slate and port away. If he knew he was getting the shrines, he would be able to guess where he could go—after all, it was almost too easy to tell which shrines he had been to. They all changed to the same bright blue when he entered them. 

Even if he did move around all the time, it was pretty easy to tell where he had been. 

“I’ve kicked all the other Rito out of the Range, seeing as it’s mine,” he said with a huff, rolling his eyes. “Nobody would see you do...whatever it is you do in there. And there’s a cooking pot in the roost you’re welcome to use. I certainly don’t care...”

From the furtive glances he kept shooting at him as he waited for an answer, it seemed he  _ did  _ care, but perhaps about something other than Link using the cooking pot in his Flight Range. What it was that he cared about, Link couldn’t be certain, but…

_ “Okay,”  _ he signed shortly, before he could change his mind, his hands shaking more than he cared to admit. 

The not-stranger’s eyes went almost comically wide, and some of his haughty exterior seemed to fall away for a moment. “I—I’m not interpreting you wrong, am I—you’re coming with me?”

Link nodded rapidly. 

Something close to a smile briefly took over his face. “Well. Good…I’m not much for endless chases, you know.”

Link’s cheeks burned scarlet, but the other either didn’t notice or didn’t comment. He only continued on in a dramatically weary sort of drawl. 

“I suppose I ought to give you a lift, if we’re to make it anywhere before the worst of this storm comes.”

He stared at Link somewhat expectantly, but he only blinked, brow furrowed a bit in confusion. Several seconds passed before the not-stranger seemed to understand the problem. 

“Oh Hylia,” he sighed, looking skyward for a moment before huffing. “I’m a Rito. You know we can fly, and I can certainly carry you. The Flight Range is across the mountains  _ that  _ way.” He pointed sharply behind him. “I’m going to fly us there, and you’re going to hold onto me or fall into the snow. And I am  _ not  _ spending an evening digging you out of a drift or defrosting you when you inevitably freeze. Got it?”

When Link nodded rapidly, he smirked and turned around, lowering to one knee and fanning out his wings. “Come on then.”

He hurried over, not wanting to push his luck either way—by annoying the not-stranger enough for him to leave, or by panicking himself enough for  _ him  _ to leave. They fumbled for a moment as Link found where exactly to hold onto him without messing with his movements. Eventually, they figured it out, and the not-stranger glanced back for a moment, locking eyes with Link. 

“I’m Revali, by the way.”

Then the wind howled beneath them and they shot up and into the sky faster than any updraft Link had ever flown across. Snow kicked up in a whirlwind below them, and the mountain grew smaller and smaller as they spiraled endlessly higher into the updraft, circling and circling until he lost track of how many times they had gone around. It was all a dizzying blur of soaring air and weightlessness, the sensation of clinging on a bit frantically but feeling more free in that moment than he ever had before. 

By the time Revali pulled out of the updraft and turned toward the Flight Range, and the wind continued to push at them even as they flew with it, he felt lighter than he had in weeks. His hands loosened around Revali’s shoulders, and he looked around, a smile slipping across his face. It was small, and hesitant, and he was sure the good feeling would fade at least some when they landed and the awkwardness of not remembering returned. But for now, for this small moment...he was...happy. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Worth mentioning that this will...likely get at least a second chapter, but you all know my lack of update schedule, so...yeah. Thanks for reading!


	2. I Fall In Love Too Easily

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, I'm on an updating roll!
> 
> This is complete for now, but who knows. Maybe I'll add Supreme Fluff later on. Idk. Lemme know what you think? And thanks for reading, as always. Your kudos and comments give me so many warm fuzzies. :)

Hebra didn’t really have seasons. It was cold, and dim, and snowy for most of the year round. The base of the mountains, where the lodge was and the road into Tabantha, always had the most frigid winds. The air only really settled at the northernmost snowfields, where nothing moved or breathed. Even in the hot springs, tucked away under clever rock formations or off an unmarked path, the air swirled and tumbled almost constantly, a chilly reminder of the icy mountains above. 

Some lucky nights, the clouds would clear away and the sky would come alive with wisps of strange light, and if you sat on a peak high enough, you could watch the wisps twist into different shapes, shifting with the changing wind. Strings of green and blue, rising and fading seemingly at random, and never the same no matter how many lucky nights there were in a row. 

It was on one of these nights that Link found himself sitting on the roof of the Flight Range, bundled in several layers of thick blankets over his tunic. Only his head stuck out, and still he shivered just a bit when the wind howled too close. But he hardly seemed to notice the cold. His eyes were too fixed on the lights above him, shifting and swirling among the stars.

He had never seen anything like them. They had appeared slowly, in little wisps and strands about an hour ago, when he had only been looking at the stars as a distraction from his own wayward thoughts. 

It was nice to see the sky so clearly here. The last place he had seen the stars was on the Plateau, the night after he had woken up, before the task had crashed down on him in an unbearable weight. After he started the shrines, and the king told him exactly what he had failed to do one hundred years ago...well he hadn’t been thinking about anything but finishing the task set before him. His thoughts had been dark and scrambled, too distracted to even think of looking at the sky and trying to calm himself down from the edge.

But now, now that he actually had a place to stay every night and someone to talk to who didn’t stare at him with regret and anger in their eyes, he found himself on the roof, staring at the sky and thinking in circles. At least until the strange lights had shown up, and then he had been properly distracted by the show they put on. Endlessly dancing, casting odd glows off the snowy slopes around them, in big swaying streams of green and blue—they were captivating, in the least. He had been watching them for some time now.

The wind changed behind him, a shift upward which could indicate the arrival of only one other person. Link did not move, watching the lights shift and change. 

“You’ve been up here for hours,” Revali said, his taloned feet clicking on the wooden roof as he walked over toward him. He stopped beside him, frowning a bit as he looked down at him on the roof. “You’re going to freeze if you keep this up, even with all those blankets you pilfered.”

Link looked up at him briefly, the green and blue of the lights reflected off his eyes, which were a bit too watery to blame entirely on the cold. One of his hands emerged from the blanket mound, and he patted the patch of wood next to him. 

Revali gave him a flat look. “Sit? No, thank you, I don’t envy your spot at all.”

He patted the wood more insistently, almost slapping at it in a much louder pattern. 

“Alright, alright, _fine._ Pushy Hylians and their silly desires…”

He kept grumbling as he settled down next to him, trailing off eventually as they both turned their attention back to the lights. It was quiet, only the sound of the updrafts behind them to fill the air. Neither of them seemed keen to break the peace, their eyes too lost in their own distractions for the moment. 

There was a peacefulness to the silence, however, unlike the pressing quiet they each encountered elsewhere. Somehow, they found an odd solace in one another, even if it was only for a few moments, begrudging and full of misdirection and sideways glances. 

For now, the avoidance was a comfort. A distant caring was better than a smothering ‘love,’ after all. 

Link nudged Revali softly after a few moments of peace, gaining his attention. When he was certain his eyes were on him, he signed. 

_“I don’t think I ever did this before.”_

Revali’s eyes flicked back to his face, watching him for a moment, no judgement in his eyes, just watching. That was one thing Revali never judged him on. He would whine about everything else Link did, from cooking at all hours of the day to using too many arrows trying to shoot a Korok’s balloon to disappearing deep into Hebra and not reappearing for hours. But he never once made him feel guilty for the past he had left behind, for the things he couldn’t remember.

“No, I don’t think you did,” he said quietly, barely audible over the wind. His gaze returned to the sky, but his eyes were somewhere far away. “It certainly is beautiful...”

Link nodded, but he had stopped watching the lights. He was still looking at Revali. When he glanced back over at Link a few seconds later, they both looked away quickly. Revali cleared his throat roughly, and they were quiet for several minutes. 

“I never knew you could see them from here,” Revali said some time later, his voice still soft and distant in a way it rarely was. All his boisterousness seemed to have left him for now. “The elder took all the fledglings to see them at the peaks, once. They’re much closer there...but I never realized they could be seen this close to home…”

_“What are they, anyway?”_

“I have no idea…” he trailed off and was quiet for a moment, his expression wistful. “There used to be a woman who ran an apothecary, just before you enter the village. The smaller buildings off the main bridges, you remember?”

Link nodded. Revali had dragged him back to Rito only once for food, and he remembered him pointing to the abandoned buildings on the outskirts of the village. They were small, and clearly old, and primarily, empty. Link hadn’t asked what they were for, and Revali hadn’t offered any information until now.

“She ran her apothecary from one of those little huts,” he went on, looking at the lights again. “She was old, older than the elder was at the time. I can’t recall her name...at the festivals every year, she used to gather all the children in the biggest roost and tell stories. Some were the ones we would hear all the time—legends of the Rito, the songs we pass down, and all that pomp. But one year she told a different story, about the lights over Hebra…

“‘The great dragons do not come to Hebra,’ she said, ‘Because Hebra is the place where the mountains touch the sky. Since these mountains were formed, none of the great spirit dragons could fly through Hebra’s peaks, for there were too many of them and the dragons too large to fly safely. Naydra once tried to fly through the mountains in the east. But one wrong turn and she split the mountain in two, and her beautiful horn splintered into a great crown of ice. One more hit, and her horn would surely break apart. So you see, even the great ice dragon cannot visit Hebra.’

“One of the other fledglings asked how Hebra was kept safe, then, since the dragons were meant to be our great protectors, watching over Hyrule while the Goddess slept,” he shook his head with a bit of a smile. “And she said, ‘Hebra is protected not by the spirit dragons, but by the dragons of the past, the great ancestors of the spirit dragons, their brethren from long ago. They appear only at night, when the sky is clear high in Hebra’s many peaks, to dance with the stars and protect us from the monsters of the night. It is _these_ dragons who watch over Hebra. And though they do not take the forms of the dragons elsewhere in Hyrule, they are just as powerful, for no other dragons can dance among the stars.’”

Link watched the lights morph and shift, rising and falling in great streams of green and blue light, bending and swaying to a rhythm all their own. 

_“I think I like that,”_ he signed, and Revali watched him carefully. _“Dragons in the sky, watching over us…”_

Revali hummed, his eyes lingering on him for a moment before going back to the lights in the sky. “It’s only a story…”

Link nudged him again, and he brought his attention back down. _“Maybe it isn’t...maybe it’s not just a story.”_

Revali stared at him silently, at the almost hopeful look in his eyes, and found he couldn’t possibly say anything to take that look away. He sighed and looked away, anywhere but at Link and the fragile happiness in his eyes. 

“I suppose you’re right.”

They were quiet for a few moments, watching the dancing of the lights across the sky, the stars blinking through them intermittently. 

_“The dragons are real.”_

Revali looked over at his movement, frowning slightly. “Can you repeat that?”

He nodded. _“The spirit dragons. The ones you said protect Hyrule. They’re real.”_

Revali’s eyes widened a bit. “Really?”

He nodded again. _“I’ve seen two of them—Farosh. She guards the Spring of Courage, but she flies all the way from Faron to Gerudo. I saw her by Lake Hylia when I…when I first left the Plateau.”_ He paused for a moment, his expression going dreary and worn. But it cleared away with a shake of his head. _“The other one, Dinraal guards the Spring of Power, I think...I saw her from the Tower in Hebra. She flew over the canyon one night.”_

Revali glanced in the direction he pointed, eyes wide with surprise. “I had no idea they were real.”

_“They’re beautiful. Dinraal’s horns are covered in fire, and Farosh is surrounded by electricity. But they don’t hurt anyone. They just fly by…”_

“I’d like to see that…”

Link smiled a little. _“I could show you?”_

“The dragon, you mean? Dinraal, right?”

He nodded. _“I know where to watch her from. Maybe...tomorrow?”_

Revali almost smiled. “Alright. But only if you get inside. You’re redder than a wildberry and as cold as a keese. I’m not going to tout your corpse over to the Tower.”

Link laughed, a breathy sort of sound that seemed to take Revali by surprise, if the little jump he did was anything to go by. But Link nodded and pulled his blankets around him more tightly, getting to his feet a little haphazardly. Revali caught him by the elbow before he could slip, holding him firmly in place until he managed to get his feet to stop slipping on the wood.

_“Thanks.”_

Revali only shook his head. “Come on before you break your neck.”

He let him keep a hold on his arm as they made their way over to the edge of the roof where the posts jutted out enough to climb down. _“I can make dinner.”_

“I’m not going to take that privilege from you. Be my guest, as long as you’re actually in front of the fire and not turning into an ice block, I don’t care.”

_“I promise to stay in front of the fire, alright?”_

He hmphed, letting him go to climb down the post while he flew down to the landing. Link made quick, if sloppy work of getting back into the roost, where Revali was already waiting, watching him carefully. He shrugged the blankets off, tossing them over the hammock and shuffling over to the fire, warming his hands and ignoring the shaking in them.

“If you’re going to continue your stargazing, you’re going to need a thicker tunic than that…”

Link looked up at him, confused. _“I bought this in Rito. There wasn’t anything else.”_

He huffed. “Well. It hardly even fits you right.” He shook his head. “We’ll get you another one. See if they can’t make it with thicker feathers than that nonsense. Cheap, useless…”

His grumbling went on, but Link only smirked and rubbed his hands together. If he had learned anything in the last few days, it was that once Revali started muttering under his breath, there was nothing he could do to get him to stop. All he could do was wait him out.

Not that he minded, really. Especially when Revali only ever seemed to grumble his own concerns about Link’s wellbeing. It made a pleasant feeling settle in his chest, warming him more than any tunic ever could.

******

“You can’t afford to waste so much time aiming in the air,” Revali said, tossing a towel at his face. “Every second you take to find your shot, your target is moving, and _you_ are moving. You have to take your shot when the moment comes, not wait for the best angle possible—especially in your case, where you have so little control. You _know_ this. If you _wanted_ to swim, there are _hot springs_ for that.”

Link rolled his eyes, wrapping the towel more tightly around his shoulders as Revali continued to mutter about “incompetence” and “stupid Hylians without wings,” all the while digging through their supplies to try to start the fire. They had been training for a while now, and the fire had gone out at some point, likely while Revali had fought the updrafts to come fish Link out of the water at the base of the Flight Range. Whenever it had happened, the roost was cold now, and even Revali didn’t like it to be cold for too long. 

Still grumbling under his breath, Revali eventually stomped over to the grate with more kindling, flint and a knife. He shoved the kindling into the pile of wood and sat down a bit dramatically before he began furiously swiping at the flint. It wasn’t working. He was making sparks, but they were going everywhere but at the kindling under the grate. With every failed attempt, he only hit the flint harder, which was making less and less sparks, and more bits of unusable flint all over the floor. 

Link let him try it a few more times before whistling shortly. When Revali’s eyes snapped to him, he gestured for the flint. This earned him quite the unimpressed look. 

“You’re an icicle,” Revali said flatly, turning back to the grate. “I can practically feel you shaking from here. A blizzrobe would do a better job of starting a fire than you.”

Link whistled again, louder. Revali glared, and he glared back. _“Let me do it.”_

“No. You’ll break the flint.”

_“You’re already doing that.”_

Revali let out a sound that was closest to a growl, and tossed the flint at him, holding the knife out point down. “Go on then, do your worst.”

He took the knife and scooted closer to the grate, ignoring how his hands were still a bit numb and tingly in the fingers. Revali had his arms crossed and looked a bit too smug for someone who had scattered bits of flint all over the floor. He ignored him, fumbled the knife a little as he adjusted his grip, and scraped the knife down the flatter side of the flint. 

The kindling went up in smoke, and a few seconds later, the dried out wood caught and the fire was going once again. Link handed the flint and the knife back to Revali, who looked somewhere between stunned and righteously angry. He glowered at the cheery flames for several seconds before pushing to his feet, muttering something darkly which sounded a lot like “show off.”

Link smirked for a moment before the wind blew too close for comfort and he shivered, abruptly reminded of the fact that he was soaking wet and his toes were a bit numb. He frowned down at his tunic sticking to his stomach, pulling at it with shaking fingers before giving up entirely and yanking it over his head. The action made his hair stand on end, but he only tossed his tunic somewhere behind him and scooted closer to the fire’s warmth. 

He didn’t notice Revali staring, at least not for a few seconds, too focused on warming up to think of much else. But Revali was indeed staring, his eyes caught on the starburst of scars spiraling all across Link’s chest. His expression was stalled somewhere between horror and forced composure; it seemed he had entirely forgotten his upset over the flint, too confronted by the visible signs of...whatever had happened to Link one hundred years ago.

Before he had any hope of puzzling out what could leave such a mark, Link caught him, his eyes going wide as he realized where Revali was looking. He stiffened, but didn’t turn away. 

_“I don’t remember it,”_ he signed a bit stiltedly, and Revali finally tore his eyes away to look at him properly. _“I know it’s...that day, but I don’t remember it.”_

They stared at each other silently, a thousand unspoken words passing between them in that brief moment. So much of the strange trust they had built came from moments like this, when neither of them had to say much to understand.

“How?” Revali asked quietly, keeping his eyes fixed on Link’s face. 

_“One of the machines, I think…”_ Link signed slowly, half shrugging. _“They shoot these beams…they were all over the place when I went to…”_

The confusion left Revali’s expression as he trailed off, replaced by something close to horror. “The Guardians.”

Link only shrugged again, looking into the fire, his eyes dark. _“Like I said, I don’t remember it.”_

No answer came immediately, but he could feel Revali’s eyes lingering on him for several seconds more. “I think it’s better that way.”

Link looked over at him sharply, but Revali had taken to staring at the fire as well. The tension slowly seeped out of them both, the sounds of the wind and the crackling fire enough to ease them away from the dark path their conversation had taken. 

A comfortable silence fell for a few moments, at least until Revali apparently became too exasperated to sit still and launched to his feet, stalking over to their supplies and grumbling about dinner. Link watched him calmly, catching the blanket eventually tossed his way and bundling up in it. 

Usually, he would cook, but it seemed Revali needed the distraction tonight more than he did, so he didn’t press. He was still a bit too cold to be much help anyway. No, he was much more comfortable warming up by the fire. Besides, Revali likely wouldn’t have let him help anyway. He was far too stubborn for that. 

A short while later, Revali passed him a skewer loaded with a near obscene amount of fish. He signed a quick, _“thank you,”_ and dug in, only realizing then and there how hungry he was. They _had_ been training for several hours…

“Do you even breathe between bites?” Revali asked, his expression scandalized when Link looked up at him.

He shrugged. _“Hungry.”_

“I can see that.”

_“Thanks for cooking.”_

Revali looked away, frowning. “I’m not completely incompetent, you know.”

Link only smiled at him, not rising to the bait. _“I know.”_

The simple response seemed to throw Revali off more than anything else. He gave Link a bit of a wild look and then quickly went back to his own food, grumbling something under his breath that Link couldn’t make out. But based on how puffed up his feathers had become, it couldn’t have been anything too terrible.

Either way, he let the comfortable silence fall again, too content to bother breaking the peace for a little while. But eventually, he found his thoughts straying somewhere else, and frowned, looking up at Revali.

_“Do you think she’s still looking for me?”_

“The Princess, you mean?”

He nodded, poking at his skewer in a disinterested sort of way. 

“I’m sure she is,” Revali said, his voice flat and stiff. “Whether she is looking _well,_ that is an entirely different and pointless question. Besides, she would never come here. Not after the tongue lashing I gave her last time we spoke.”

Link looked up at him sharply, but Revali was spearing more mushrooms with a skewer quite aggressively, too caught up in his own scowling to notice Link’s eyes on him. It was only when Link whistled lowly that he looked up, still scowling. 

_“What do you mean?”_

He rolled his eyes and went back to mutilating the mushroom in the cooking pot. “After you ran off. I’m not certain when you left exactly, but the Princess revealed her _stunning_ lack of aptitude.” He paused for a moment and met Link’s eyes. “She hadn’t told us before how you defeated the Calamity, or so quickly.”

Link felt his eyes widen, and something close to anger roiled in his stomach. _“Why?”_

“Who knows,” he shrugged. “Before then, none of us really knew where you were. I had arrived at Kakariko some few days before, and I—” he frowned, shook his head, and continued. “Well, I hadn’t seen you along the way. You came up in conversation and I— _we_ asked where you were.”

_“We as in the...others, right?”_

“Primarily Mipha and Daruk, but yes. Mipha is the Zora Princess, she piloted Vah Ruta, and Daruk is a Goron, he piloted Vah Rudania. Overgrown lizard if I’ve ever seen one. But anyway.” He waved his hand and moved on. “We asked her where you were, thinking you might know more about the state Hyrule was in than she did, and she spilled everything. Including the fact that you had _apparently_ been in the village the whole _time.”_

He attacked another mushroom so harshly it burst apart and he glared at it, fuming. Link did not immediately continue the conversation, waiting until he had managed to get his fill of mushrooms on his skewer and seemed calm enough to continue. Though the fact that Revali had...waited for him in the village did make him feel oddly warm in his chest. 

“She clearly wasn’t going to say anything else of value, so I left to go find you wherever she ditched you,” he went on, rolling his eyes. “Mipha came along as well. But your room was empty, of course, and then some little Sheikah girl was wailing, claiming you must have been kidnapped until she realized your things were missing. Anyway, I told the Princess that she had all but pushed you away with her stupidity and then I set out to find you. She was quite red in the face when I left.”

Link fought a nasty sort of smile. Something fierce and ugly in him was happy that Revali had unsettled her. More positively, though, the warm feeling from before returned, knowing that Revali had defended him, cared enough to question the Princess and tell her she was wrong. Especially considering it sounded like he was the only one to do so.

And he was the one who actually _found_ him, who kept showing up even when he ran off, who he eventually decided to stay with. Not because he kept pestering him (though he did) but because he made it perfectly clear he wasn’t going to cart him back to the Princess. And in the days that followed, he had more than proven he didn’t judge Link for forgetting, or for not pursuing whatever fragments of his memories might have lingered somewhere. 

There was a petulant hurt in the Princess’s eyes when she spoke to Link, when she talked in circles around him as he sat and stared back at her, weighed down by her expectations and his own failures in meeting them. She hadn’t tried more than a few times to speak to him. When she realized he wasn’t going to answer her, she left.

Revali never did that. And Link knew that he had ignored him often, particularly when he had been chasing him all around Hebra. 

He could have given up just like she had, but he didn’t. And that really made all the difference.

 _“She always talked_ **_at_ ** _me,”_ he signed, and Revali watched him carefully. _“She would...she kept talking about all these things from...before, and I didn’t know what she was talking about, so I had nothing to say. It would only make her upset. She never stayed long.”_

Revali scoffed. “Of course she didn’t. Selfish girl. The moment she realized you couldn’t have the conversation she wanted you to have with her, she left you alone again.”

 _“I don’t know why she didn’t...understand.”_ He shook his head, looking at Revali as if he would have the answer to the implied question. _“I don’t...that part of me is gone. I don’t...I don’t want to remember all of that. And she…”_

Revali waited a few moments, but when he shook his head again, he answered. “She wants everything to go back to the way it was then.” He paused, looking somewhere distant. “I don’t know how close the two of you were, but you were with her often, that I know for certain. I’m assuming that she believed once the fight was over, you would wish to travel with her again.”

He shook his head rapidly. _“I don’t want to...I don’t even know her...why would I want to…”_

“You don’t have to,” Revali said decisively. “She can’t force you. Even if she did discover you here, there would be no right for her to make you follow her around just because she wants you to. You...you can stay here...if you want.”

He looked away as soon as he said it, avoiding Link’s eyes and picking at his skewer distractedly. His feathers had puffed up again, and Link had the sudden desire to touch them. But he only scooted closer and nudged him gently to get his attention back once again, a soft half smile on his face.

 _“I’d like that,”_ he signed quickly, but genuinely. _“I’d like to stay here.”_

Revali smiled, and it lit up his whole being like nothing else, all his grumpy exterior gone in the face of Link’s genuine happiness. 

******

“Link.”

He groaned, swatting at the hand above his face and turning away.

 _“Link,_ so help me—”

Revali poked him awake a bit roughly, a frown already set on his face. “If you want to eat before we go, you’re going to have to wake up, you know. I’m not going to spoon feed you.”

Link grumbled something incoherent, not really words, and rolled out of the hammock and onto the floor with a painful smack.

“Very smooth, well done.”

He glared up at Revali, taking the skewer of mushrooms he passed over without a word. They ate in silence, no light beyond the embers of the fire and the weak light of the impending sunrise. 

Only a few moments later, Link was pulling on his warmest tunic and stomping into his new boots (Revali had finally forced him to get ones without cracks in the soles). 

Revali already had his bow on his back and was waiting somewhat impatiently on the landing, his scarf blowing harshly in the wind. He turned away as Link joined him, crouching enough for him to climb onto his back (much smoother this time than the last) and hold on a bit tightly to his shoulders. It was a bit awkward with the bow on his back too, but they managed it. In a flurry of wind and snow, they were off, flying north deeper into Hebra.

They didn’t speak as Revali flew, the wind far too loud to be able to hear each other anyway. The temperature slowly dropped, going from cold to downright frigid as the snowstorm picked up into a blizzard, and the sun blotted out among the clouds.

Link wasn’t too concerned about where exactly they were going. Revali chose their destinations most days, and they would poke around and kill time until darkness fell. Sometimes they would find the odd monster still lingering around and get rid of it. Other times, Revali would catch sight of something he found interesting and they would explore around, sometimes finding treasure or the like. Still other times, they managed to stumble upon a shrine for Link to complete, and Revali would make camp and wait for him. 

It didn’t really matter what they were doing. The benefit of these sorts of trips never came from what they managed to find, even when it was something as important as a shrine or a place Revali wanted to scout. There was something simpler than that which made it worthwhile, even when they returned to the Flight Range empty handed. 

Maybe it was the act of leaving the Range every once in a while, or maybe it was the chance of discovering something. Maybe it was just more interesting to explore somewhere he doubted he had been even _before._

But more than that...well, it was just nice to spend time with Revali, without the pressure of forgetting or the awkwardness of trying to remember. It was...freeing. 

He hadn’t spent much time with the Princess before fleeing, but the few hours she had lurked in his room were more than enough to draw a good comparison. Zelda did nothing but poke, prod, and nudge him toward things she assumed he knew. When she discovered he didn’t know, or recalled that he had forgotten everything, her whole being would deflate with sadness and she would leave with little more than a few parting words. 

Most of his time in Kakariko Village had been spent alone, cooped up in the dim rooms facing the waterfalls behind whoever’s house he was in. A young girl would come in every couple hours to check on him and give him food. She was nice enough, but she didn’t talk anymore than he did. The Sheikah elder was somewhere below him, but he didn’t leave the room. 

Except when he fled through the window, anyway. And then, he had only climbed out and skirted his way up the cliff side before using the Slate to go back to the Plateau and find somewhere to stay for a while. 

Even when he was traveling, he rarely interacted with other people. Sure, there was the strange merchant Beedle, who always seemed to beat him to stables and towns, but beyond the occasional stock up, he avoided people on the roads. He avoided the _roads_ after a while. 

The desire for solitude (or maybe it was loneliness) eventually pushed him to Hebra, and it was then that Revali finally sniffed him out. And while they had avoided each other for a while too, after that first time at the Flight Range, he...he didn’t _want_ to leave. 

Revali was different. He didn’t gape like the people on the road or at the stables, didn’t look at him with mixed pity and sadness like the Princess. He didn’t push for him to remember. Didn’t even mention that he couldn’t remember, most times. They only spoke about things like that when Link himself brought it up, and Revali never pressed him to continue when he inevitably lost the words. 

When they talked, it felt like...like maybe he wasn’t missing anything because he forgot the past. After all, if something could be this...if something could be this good now, then maybe it was okay he didn’t remember one hundred years ago. Maybe it was okay to just _be_ now, here, himself, with Revali. 

And sure, Revali could be more prickly than a wildberry bush, but he wasn’t ever outright rude. He was nothing like the Princess had been, either…

“Are you done brooding back there?” Revali called, snapping him out of his thoughts. “I’m going to land, so hold tight.”

He gave no response beyond gripping his shoulders a bit more, holding on more consciously as Revali began to fly lower. They left the updrafts quickly, gliding smoothly lower, and Link marveled again at Revali’s skill in the air. Even inhibited by carrying Link on his back, which had to be awkward, Revali flew as if he owned the skies. Every move he made was deliberate and well thought out; he never floundered. 

It came as little surprise, then, that they made an easy landing on one of Hebra’s many snow covered slopes. Link hopped off Revali’s back and brushed the hair which had come loose back from his face. 

“There’s a frost talus under the ridge ahead,” Revali said, pointing to the odd shaped rocks to the east of them. 

_“Are you sure?”_

He huffed, fixing his scarf and giving Link a pointed look. “What other massive ice structure would there be down there? Besides, one of the guards of the Village mentioned it. Apparently it’s been a nuisance before.”

Link hummed, pulling out the Slate and scrolling through his gear. _“Do you need anything?”_

“Fire arrows, if you have them. They should melt the ice to let you climb it’s back. And I can cover for you, if it tosses you off.”

He nodded, and with a brief glow of blue light, he passed a nearly obscene amount of fire arrows over. Revali made a startled sound that was nearly a laugh, but put them in his quiver nonetheless. Link smirked, but quickly went back to the Slate and got his own weapons ready. 

“That is one of the most ridiculous pieces of weaponry I have ever seen.”

_“What’s wrong with it?”_

“You’re going to fight a frost talus, a solid piece of rock and ice which could easily toss you at any moment, with a metal sledgehammer as tall as you are.”

Link grinned cheekily. _“You’re the one who said I’m short.”_

“You _are,”_ Revali said, exasperated. “I tend to judge weapons by a different standard from Hylians! That hammer is ridiculous!”

He only shook his head and hefted the sledgehammer onto his shoulder. The motion sent Revali into a bit of a flutter, jerking away from him with a curse. Link only laughed. 

_“I’ll be fine,”_ he signed with one hand, and tilted his head in the direction he had indicated earlier. 

Revali stared at him for several seconds with the same stunned expression before shaking his head and pushing on, grumbling something which sounded suspiciously like “stupid oversized weaponry...heavier than _he_ is.”

They made their way carefully to the edge of the ridge and peered over the side of the slope. Sure enough, there was a large chunk of glowing white ice rock sticking out of the ground. It was a good thirty or so feet below them, right in the center of the area. The edge of the talus’s weak spot—an ore deposit on its back—was just poking out from under the snow. 

Link tossed the sledgehammer over his shoulder, where it clanked briefly against his shield. _“You wake it up, I’ll land on its back.”_

Revali stared at his hands for several seconds of silence, as if they had personally offended him. “You’re going to land on its back.”

He nodded. 

“How, exactly, are you planning to do that without shattering your ankles?”

He rolled his eyes and tugged the glider from its place, tucked behind his shield. It opened with a snap, the fabric flapping in the light breeze. 

Revali’s eyes had fixed on it the moment he pulled it out, and they did not move for several seconds. Something, something was stirring in his expression, but Link could not puzzle it out. It was almost frightened, or perhaps simply distressed—he couldn’t be sure. Whatever it was, Revali was unsettled and he had no idea why.

After a pause just a few seconds too long, when he was beginning to question if he had done something wrong, Revali nodded rapidly. “Of course,” he muttered. 

Link frowned. His voice sounded off, but he was already pushing back to his feet, the moment passed. He let it slip away unquestioned. 

“It’ll likely spring up once its coat of ice melts,” he said, seemingly forcing his voice back to normal. “Once it’s on its feet, then glide down to it. If you try before then, it might throw you off.”

He nodded, still holding the paraglider loose in his hands. Revali’s eyes flicked to it once more before he shook his head and dove off the edge of the slope, flying quickly down toward the frost talus. 

Then the fight had begun, and both of them forgot the small moment which had preceded it. And maybe that was why it was so comfortable to be with Revali. No moment ever pushed beyond its own bounds. Somehow, intuitively, they had parsed out each other’s boundary lines, and neither of them moved past those lines without clear permission. 

Moments which would have been excruciating under the pleading eyes of the Princess were only passing pains with Revali. The past wasn’t an ache, a gaping hole in his chest he couldn’t fill—it was just a blurry picture he could choose to look at or not. 

And even if he chose to put it away, Revali stayed and kept up whatever task they found themselves doing at the time, no judgement in his eyes for forgetting or leaving the past where it lay. He had no idea how they had gotten to this point so quickly, but...he was very happy they had. 

A few minutes later, when the talus had exploded in a puff of purple smoke and chunks of shining ore, Revali quickly landed next to him, pulling him up from where he had fallen and brushing the snow off of him with a frown. 

“You need to be more careful,” he scolded, his hands tight on his shoulders to hold him still as he looked him over with a critical eye. His feathers were soft where they skated over his face, his arms, even though his frown was severe. “That thing nearly threw you off several times. What would you have done if it had? You could have broken a leg, or worse your neck.”

 _“But it didn’t throw me off,”_ Link signed, waving his hand dismissively. _“I’m alright.”_

Revali was not amused. “You have a very twisted view of ‘alright.’ You do realize you’re bleeding?” 

He frowned, looking himself over and finding a thin gash on his arm. Thankfully, it wasn’t too terrible. With a hum, he took out the slate with his other hand and scrolled around on it until he found his elixirs. A little bottle of odd red liquid appeared a moment later. He drank it with a grimace and watched as the cut sealed itself back up again. 

Revali was staring at where the cut had been, looking almost curious, at least until he noticed Link beaming at him, and he rolled his eyes with a scoff. “Come on daredevil, back to the Flight Range before you find some other reason for injury.”

He nodded happily and followed Revali as they began the trek back up the slope, picking up stray pieces of ore as he went. 

*******

Several days passed in easy wanderings. After selling every bit of ore they had pilfered from the frost talus (and after Revali spent an almost terrifying amount of the rupees on arrows and yet another, somehow warmer tunic for Link, which he all but threw at him, grumbling about frostbite the entire time) they had gone back to their usual routine of training and wandering around the mountains. Some days, though, they spent only in the Flight Range, one or both of them too tired to bother exploring the cold mountains surrounding them. More often than not, it was Link watching as Revali trained, too worn or simply not in the mood to join him in the Range’s course.

And so Link found himself staring into the fire as he poked at the stew he was making for lunch. Revali was flying endlessly around the Range’s course, taking out targets in a way that gave away how little he was really trying. They had nothing better to do, though, and so they were both occupying themselves, unbothered by the slowness of time’s passing. It was just another quiet day, pleasant in its simplicity. 

Occasionally, Link would glance over and make sure Revali wasn’t doing anything too odd. There was no reason to repeat the fiasco that had been Revali overtraining one day earlier in his stay here. The amount of complaining he had done in the days that followed, all because he had pulled a muscle in hsi wing trying to do some maneuver in the tight space of the Range...Link did _not_ want a repeat of that. 

But Revali didn’t seem too concerned with overdoing it today. He moved with ease and repetition, running through the same familiar maneuvers rather than trying anything more difficult. Link watched him for a few seconds as he came in and out of view, one, two, three arrows sailing toward their targets all at once, each of them hitting as Revali flew lower and out of sight. The targets were quickly filling up with arrows, all of them clustered around their centers. 

No doubt Revali would whine about having to dig them all out later. Link smirked a bit at that and went back to his stew. Revali would likely take a break soon anyway. Either that, or Link would drag him out to eat something before continuing on.

There was a commotion of hooves and feet somewhere to his left, but he ignored it, too focused on making sure his stew didn’t burn to care who had wandered into the Flight Range now. It happened every once in a while—someone from Rito Village looking for Revali or a traveler too lost to find the trail. Link never bothered with coming out unless his help was really needed. Whoever it was, they were likely here for Revali anyway, and he would handle it.

At least that’s what he thought until someone came scrambling up the ladder, and he realized that wasn’t likely to happen, given who it was. 

Princess Zelda stood, bundled against the cold and gaping at him from the entryway.

They watched each other for several seconds of absolute silence, with expressions a mix of surprise and trepidation, neither of them moving. Link fought the urge to flee from her questioning eyes, find some place to hide and hole up before she could poke and prod and find him lacking, as she always seemed to. 

She broke the silence before he had the chance to move, and the moment, the balance between potential peace and another painful present, shattered. 

“You’ve been _here?”_ she nearly squealed, her face scrunched with distaste and something like disappointment. “Why are you…why are you here?”

Link could only stare at her as she looked around the roost, too stunned to come up with anything reasonable to reply. 

Her eyes went around the small room and found it unsatisfying before settling on Link once again. She looked him over as well, and seemed to come to the same conclusion she had about the roost. There was a sourness to her expression, and that familiar hurt. Or perhaps it was disappointment. He couldn’t be certain. He really didn’t want to know. 

He didn’t want her here. Not that she would hear that, even if he could make his hands move to the right words. 

His silence seemed to set her off even more, her face burning red and brow furrowing low over her eyes. “Why did you leave?”

He was frozen, staring at her as her anger became ever clearer. 

“You just left, you didn’t tell anyone where you had gone! Do you have any idea how long I’ve been looking for you? We thought you could have been—been—well, who knows what could have happened to you? What are you doing _here?”_

Link backed away from her, lunch long forgotten. She followed him back, her hands on her hips and her expression more fearsome than he had ever seen it, even when he had watched her face the Calamity itself. 

“Well?” she demanded highly. 

His breathing had picked up, his eyes darting around her for an escape, but not finding any. She blocked the way to the ladder, and unless he rounded the boiling cooking pot, he wouldn’t be able to dive off the landing into the Range either. 

“You still won’t speak to me?” she asked, but it was hardly a question. Her expression went from furious to hurt. “After everything we’ve done together, all those talks and—and defeating the Calamity—don’t you see? You don’t have to hide behind that burden anymore! We can—”

She stepped closer to him again, and he stumbled backward, shaking his head. The motion only seemed to anger her once again, and she glared at him.

“What is wrong with you? Why are you—” she cut off, face burning. “Haven’t you remembered _anything?”_

She might have continued, but Revali landed, hard, on the landing just feet away from her, the sound of it and the wind that followed the motion silencing her.

“I don’t recall sending you an invitation,” he said flatly, his arms crossed and eyes narrowed. “Do you make a habit of invading whatever homes you want at any time?”

“So you’ve hidden him here the entire time?” she demanded angrily.

He rolled his eyes. “I haven’t hidden him anywhere. In case you’ve forgotten, he is his own person. I haven’t chained him to the floor.”

“Then why would he stay here?” she cried, her voice shrill and her face red. “Why would he want to be with you? All you do is insult him!”

Revali’s eyes went cold and hard. “The fact that your childish nature hasn’t changed in the last one hundred years does not imply that others haven’t changed,” he said, his voice steady even as his hands seemed to shake with anger. “I’m not the person I was then, anymore than he is.”

“What are you talking about? He—who _else_ would he be?!” Her voice rose higher and Link backed away another step. She did not seem to notice. “He was—he was asleep. What change could have happened when he wasn’t even _awake?!”_

“Have you forgotten what that did to him?” Revali shouted back, stepping closer and looming over her. “That _thing_ took all of his memories! As you _thought it would!_ Or have you only forgotten why that even had to occur? Why his wounds were so terrible that a _century_ had to pass before they could be healed? Or did you forget the part where _your failure_ was to blame for it?!”

She gaped at him, her mouth hanging open for several seconds before she shut it with an audible click. Her eyes burned with something sickening, something ugly, but even knowing that, there was no predicting the words which she spat next. 

“It’s no more my fault than it is his!” she screamed. “I am not the one who squandered any hope they might have had out of some—some reckless need to destroy our chances! I am not the one who left the world to die!”

She gestured wildly at him as she said it, and all the air seemed to leave the room at once. For several seconds, no one moved. An oppressive silence fell, and even though he knew the wind could not have died so suddenly, he couldn’t hear it at all. There was a horrible ringing in his ears, her words rattling around in his mind and digging into him harshly. He was only half conscious of stumbling back a step, his back hitting the roost’s edge.

She looked over at him, the anger slipping from her eyes when she saw his panicked, devastated expression, how pale he was. 

“I—” she faltered, her voice small and almost frightened. “Link, I didn’t mean—I didn’t—”

She reached out, but he flinched away from her, a wild look coming into his eyes that could signal only one thing. Revali looked over at him, and seemed to recognize it immediately, but he didn’t dare make a move. 

“Link—”

He shook his head again, frantic, his breath coming hard and fast. The Princess was still half reaching for him, her eyes wide and teary, but her words stuck like barbs in his thoughts. He felt like he was sinking into them, and he wouldn’t be able to pull himself out of the mantra of _failure failure_ **_failure._ **

Whatever stability he might have found in the last few weeks, whatever brief peace he had scrounged up with Revali, it seemed far away now. Everything which had been crushing him before—everything that had weighed him down, drowning him to the point of being desperate enough to face the Calamity with nothing but half rusted swords and broken shields—it all seemed to fall onto him again, unbearable and painful and—

He had to go. He had to _go._

“No, _Link—”_

Revali finally moved, making a mad grab for him, but he had already scrambled over the banister behind him and jumped at the cliff face behind the roost. His hands scrabbled for purchase and found it, and he was moving, forcing himself upward. 

Within seconds he had climbed up and over the side, ignoring the stinging in his ungloved hands and the icy wind pulling at his shirt. He slipped, losing his footing and falling into the snow. It was frigid, flakes like needles in his skin as he pushed himself back up, moving as quickly as he could through the drifts, hardly paying any attention to where he was going. 

Shouting followed after him, Revali’s voice clear even over the wind, but he didn’t stop. A blizzard picked up around him and the ground sloped ever upward, and he had no idea where he was, but he didn’t stop. Even when the sky grew dark and the voices behind him had long faded, and his legs were stinging and his hands were numb, he didn’t stop.

His tunic, his sword, the slate, they were all back in the roost. He didn’t care. He couldn’t go back there. The little safe haven was gone, trampled over by the same token that had ruined all of Central Hyrule to him. He couldn’t face her, couldn’t face her questions and her judgement and her _blame._

He stumbled, barely keeping his feet as his foot slipped on a hidden patch of ice. The snow was falling so hard now it was becoming difficult to see where he was going. If he even knew which direction he ought to turn in. He didn’t even know where he was going. He only knew he had to be gone. 

Wrapping his arms tighter around his middle and ignoring the quickly freezing tears that managed to escape his eyes, he trudged deeper into Hebra, the wind howling and blowing snow over the trenches of his footprints. 

******

“Stupid stupid _stupid—”_

Revali was practically incoherent, cursing as he fought the wind blowing south out of Hebra. A terrible storm was descending, and fast. In any other case, he would have turned back long ago, before his wings could ache with fatigue or the cold could bite through his feathers. With the wind fighting him so much, he could only progress by forcing his way through, fighting the currents of the air, and that was never a smart plan for prolonged flight. 

But he couldn’t turn back. _Link_ was out there somewhere, without his tunic or his weapons or any other silly little thing he crammed into that odd slate. No way to defend himself—from the cold or from any stray monster that happened upon him. 

The thought of him hurt, or frozen over with cold—he forced the image away, cursing again and pushing harder against the wind, his eyes scanning the ground below for something, any sign. But there was nothing. Nothing but snow and ice and screaming wind, the temperature dropping steadily the further north he went. 

The _look_ in his eyes when he had fled…haunted and _guilty_ in a way that made his stomach turn over and his beak clench in anger at the _idiot_ who had scared him off again. 

Oh, he wanted to throttle her, but he hadn’t hesitated long enough to do more than shout for her to _get out and never come back._ He couldn’t give Link any more of an advantage than he already gained, and even so, from the moment he called his gale and soared over the Flight Range, Link was nowhere in sight. Not even a stray boot print to show where he could have gone. 

But he _knew_ Link, and maybe even more than that, he knew Link when he panicked and made a mad getaway. He wouldn’t be thinking of somewhere smart to go, particularly without his slate or things with him. He would walk and keep walking until he couldn’t any longer, and with this weather…

He had no idea how long he had been flying. The sky had gone dark and dismal, but the storm was likely to blame at least for a part of that change. What concerned him more was the temperature. It had gone from cool to downright hellishly cold very quickly, the wind and snow not helping in the slightest. No matter how long it had been, he had to keep going.

He pushed harder against the wind, ignoring the ache already beginning to burn in his wings. This was no time for smart training or worrying about soreness the next day. He _had_ to find him. 

If Link was hurt…

His thoughts turned dark, and he attempted to distract himself by scanning the ground again, a bit frantically. Still, no sign of him. The fresh falling snow might have been obscuring where he went. He forced away the urge to change direction. Link was not foolish enough to wander in circles. He would—

_“Link!”_

Revali had always been proud of his skills in the air. Ever since he was much younger, and not exactly allowed to fly on his own, he had taken every opportunity to better himself, to become the very best at every form of aerial prowess available to a Rito. And he had managed it; he was the only of his people to master the updrafts so completely, and even without this skill, still the best flyer the village was likely to see. 

It was only that ingrained skill that kept him from dropping to the ground faster than a dead keese the moment he caught sight of Link, collapsed and half buried in snow. As it was, he made a dangerously sharp dive, pulling up at the last second and landing in a cloud of snow and sharp wind. He hardly paused long enough to catch his breath before he began digging desperately at the snow around Link. 

He wasn’t moving, but he was breathing, and his eyes were only half closed. But his hands were nearly blue and there were drops of ice frozen to his face. He didn’t seem to notice Revali’s efforts at all. He only lay still in the snow.

More frightening, however, was that he hardly shivered when Revali finally pulled him out of the snow drift. He was too still, too cold in Revali’s arms.

“You’re okay,” he mumbled, mostly to himself, hardly knowing if Link was even conscious enough to hear him. The words tumbled out regardless. “You’re okay, it’s okay—”

He looked around, his eyes scanning around the endless expanse of white for somewhere, anywhere more sheltered than this open snowfield. There was no way for them to quickly return to the Flight Range unless he could fly, and he couldn’t carry Link if he was unconscious. They would need to find some temporary shelter, at least until the storm passed or he could get Link warm enough to fly back. 

His eyes landed on an odd opening in the mountain not too far away, the dark gray of the stone poking out from beneath the snow. The wind blew right over it, but didn’t seem to be reaching inside. It would have to do. 

Steeling himself, he got to his feet once again and carefully pulled Link up with him. He was stiff and couldn’t keep his feet on his own, nearly collapsing and dragging them both back down the moment Revali managed to get him standing, a pitiful sort of groan escaping him as he leaned into his hold. Revali caught him before he could fall, and quickly started pulling him toward the opening in the mountain. 

“I’ve got you,” he muttered, catching him again as his foot slid in the snow. “It’s alright. You’re going to be fine.”

Soon enough, they were slipping through the thin crack in the mountain side, Revali all but carrying Link at this point, mumbling platitudes even he wasn’t really listening to. As soon as they were out of the wind, and the slightly warmer air of the cave settled over them, Link seemed to give out entirely, leaning heavily on Revali with his eyes closed. 

“You can’t sleep yet,” he said, nudging him until he opened his eyes blearily, not really seeing much. “You have to stay awake, alright? Until we get you warm. Stay awake.”

He only stared at Revali, his body starting to shiver almost violently. The cave was warmer than outside, but not as warm as the Flight Range, and Link had none of his usual protection. There was really only one thing he could do. 

“Come on,” Revali sighed. 

He dragged him a bit deeper into the cave before giving up and dropping down to sit. His wings were aching and Link was moments from collapsing in a heap. Sure enough, the moment Revali began to sit, Link nearly toppled over. Only Revali’s firm grip on him kept him from hitting the ground hard. He caught him again and somehow managed to get him mostly sitting up next to him, their backs to the cave wall. 

Link leaned on him, and Revali didn’t bother to move him. He only pulled him closer, ignoring the twinge in his wings as he wrapped them around Link’s shivering form. His fingers were like icy knives digging into Revali’s chest, and he was shivering hard enough to shake the both of them, but Revali only held him closer, too relieved to have found him to care that he was practically clinging to him. 

If he were perfectly honest, he rather enjoyed it. It was...nice to hold him. He only wished it didn’t come bundled with borderline hypothermia. 

“Silly featherless Hylians,” he muttered to no one in particular. 

Link only burrowed further into the embrace. The snow on his shirt was beginning to melt, leaving the worn out fabric cold and wet. He seemed to be more conscious of what was happening, if his cuddling closer was anything to go by. 

“When we get back to the roost, we’re getting you proper clothes for Hebra. And you’re wearing them. No more of this freezing nonsense. The next thing I know I’ll be chiseling you out of ice blocks.”

He pulled a hand away from Revali, shakily signing a weak, _“Sorry.”_

“No, no,” Revali shook his head, holding him a bit tighter. “Don’t apologize. I know why you left. I don’t blame you.”

He didn’t offer any kind of reply, beyond holding onto him again, hiding his face in the crook of his shoulder. 

For a long while, long enough for the little light streaming into the cave to fade almost completely, they sat in careful silence. The wind slowed, and the snow began to settle. The air seemed to warm gradually around them, whether because of the calming wind or the passing storm, it wasn’t clear, nor did it particularly matter. All Revali was happy for was the fact that Link was gradually settling, his tremors easing off into the occasional shiver.

As the threat slowly passed them by, Revali calmed enough to loosen his grip on Link just a touch. For a moment, he thought Link had seriously hurt himself by running off, but it seemed that he had found him in the nick of time. Now, some time out of the wind (and sharing the warmth of Revali’s feathers) seemed to have coaxed him back from the brink. He was still cold, and his hair and thin shirt were wet with melted snow, but he was awake and he was warming up again. A fire would help, but he would take what he could get. 

Besides, it wasn’t so terrible to be this close to him, to hold him for a little while...

“She’s wrong, you know,” Revali said softly some time later. “What happened one hundred years ago was not your fault. I know you don’t remember it, but...we failed you long before you fell. What happened after we lost was not your fault. No matter what deluded thing she believes.”

Link nodded, a small sort of half motion mostly hidden by the fact that he still had his face buried in Revali’s shoulder. He’d hardly moved at all, even when his shivering had stopped. 

“You’re not a failure, and you didn’t leave our world to die. I don’t believe you’d ever be capable of something like that.” He sighed, shook his head and continued. “We might not have always been on the...best of terms, but I do believe that anyone who looks at you and the way you behave for more than two seconds of unselfish thought would know that you would never be capable of something like that.”

Link looked up at him, his eyes heavy with unshed tears. They stared at each other for several seconds, another unspoken conversation passing between them, all happening with nothing more than a glance. 

“She’s wrong,” Revali said firmly. “You know that, right?”

He nodded slowly, but looked away, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. 

“You’re not a failure.”

He dropped his hands and gave a half shrug, looking down.

“You’re _not,_ Link.” Their eyes met again. “Not for giving your life in a fight you couldn’t win without help, and certainly not for defeating the Calamity in a way she didn’t want you to. And you are _not_ a failure for leaving your past behind. No one can force you to remember what you don’t want to remember. That’s _your_ choice to make. Not hers or anyone else’s.”

Link stared up at him as if he were some kind of apparition, as if no one had ever said anything of the sort to him before. A sickened part of Revali suspected that assumption was true. 

“And you don’t have to leave, either,” he went on quietly, his voice barely above a whisper, and perhaps a bit desperate. “I know why you ran today, and I won’t…” He paused, frowning. “I won’t stop you if you really do want to leave, but—”

He cut off as Link shook his head rapidly, his eyes wide and nearly panicked. _“I want to stay with you,”_ he signed fast, his hands still shaking just a touch. _“I didn’t—I couldn’t—”_

“Link—”

_“I couldn’t stay today, but—but I—I didn’t mean to—”_

_“Link,”_ he said more insistently, grabbing his hands and holding them tight enough to stop him for a moment. “It’s okay. I told you, you can stay with me. I...I want you to stay.”

He went absolutely still, frozen, staring up at Revali again as if he were a phenomenon he had no way of understanding. Revali watched him back. For once he fought to keep his expression open and clear. He wasn’t guarded or hiding his true feelings behind a scowl. He only watched Link back, calm and maybe a bit concerned, but earnest all the same in whatever set of mixed emotions he was feeling then.

“I want you to stay,” he repeated, more sure of himself, nodding firmly as he finished. “I...the last few weeks have been...I know that I’m not exactly the easiest person to be around, but you...I enjoy being around you, and…”

He trailed off again, the words escaping him entirely, and Link was still only staring up at him, wide eyed and hanging onto his every word, even when he was quiet for some time. 

They slipped back into that strange, silent communication they had stumbled into mastering, watching each other and somehow saying more then than they had in the whole conversation which had preceded it. Maybe it was the fact that even with sign, Link never was one to talk often. Maybe it was Revali’s preference for grumbling over actual conversation. Or maybe it was something distinct to only the two of them, something undefinable and strange, but nevertheless very real. 

Link held his gaze intensely, like he was trying to look straight through him and puzzle out his thoughts. Whatever he found there, it must have been a good thing, because he smiled, a small fragile little grin, and rested his head on Revali’s shoulder again. 

“Stay with you,” he mumbled, his voice hoarse and hardly above a whisper, worn from disuse and shaking just a bit, from the cold or some nervousness it wasn’t clear. 

Revali froze only for a moment, too surprised to be ashamed for all but gaping down at him for several seconds in a stunned stupor. It was only when it became clear that Link had dozed off, his arms wrapped lazily around him and head on his shoulder, that Revali finally came out of his shock enough to smile just a bit.


End file.
